Music.

My current music playlist consists of artist that had songs written or produced by David Foster(besides my 1 Jack Johnson song). I was watching TV tonight and his DVD, David Foster The Hitman, was on. He is an amazingly talented musician, writer and artist. Here is a list of some of the worlds most popular musicians and artists that he's written music for or produced. You'll be surprised with the range of artists he's been involved with.
Whitney Houston
Celine Dion
Christina Aguilera
Cher
Barbara Streisand
Andrea Bocelli
Josh Groban
Kenny Rogers
Michael Bolton
Donna Summers
Faith Hill
The Cors
Brandy
The Bee Gees
Mariah Carey
Kenny G
Destiny's Child
Vanessa Williams
Olivia Newton-John
Lisa Marie Presley
Dolly Parton
Michael Jackson
Madonna
All-4-One
Kenny Loggins
Az Yet
Natalie Cole
Michael Buble
Chicago
Peter Certera
Katharine McPhee
Paul McCartney
Brian McKnight
Charice Pempengco
Tony Braxton
Earth, Wind, Fire
Seal
His DVD doesn't have all these artists on it, but it does have his best of the best. If you haven't seen it, go rent it or buy it, it is so worth having. And in a world where music has gone corrupt, this DVD will totally give you a good feeling and help you appreciate these artists for the true musicians they are.

Allergy Update!

This past Tuesday I took Caisen to the Allergy Specialist to have him skin tested for peanuts and eggs. We got good and bad news there that day. The good news is that he's not allergic to eggs(which his blood test results came back as having an allergy to eggs)! Wahoo! I really didn't want him to be allergic to eggs because that is a good source of protein and everything good has eggs...like waffles, pasta, and pancakes! Anyway, so the bad news is that he's allergic to ALL nuts(not just peanuts) and he cannot even come in contact with any nuts either because his skin is that sesnsitive to the allergy. When they perform the allergy test they dip these little prongs(about 8 of them on a stick) into a liquid that has the allergy and then pierce the skin of your back and wait to see a reaction. The nurse used the prongs on the top of my hand before any allergens were on the tips to show me what it would feel like...and it felt like my hand was pressed into a ton of tiny sharp pine cones. Of course the nurse didn't pierce my skin, though she had to pierce Caisens to get an accurate reaction. She had it do it several times and it was so sad to see him crying and hold him while he was squeezing me saying "ma ma ma ma ma ma". I teared up and pretty much felt like crying as hard as he did. Thankfully the testing was a total of 45 sec. or so and they had tons of toys for him to play with so he cheered up pretty quick once he was down and playing.
After they recorded his reactions the allergy specialist gave us a prescription for 2 epi-pens which is basically just a shot that will buy you time to get to the ER when a severe allergic reaction occurs. We have 2 shots because sometimes 1 doesn't give you enough time or it isn't strong enough to slow down the reactions. It was so sad when the nurse was showing me how to use the pen...it just scares me to think that I may have to use it one day. Hopefully we can be aware enough to make sure that he doesn't come in contact with any nuts.
And lastly we also just realized that when he is exposed to nuts that not only does he get hives, swelling, yada yada, he also gets really really bad diaper rash, and this happens everytime he comes in contact with it. The evening of his allergy testing he was limping and whining so I took off his jeans and saw a huge red welt on the inside of his thigh. I took him to his bathroom and gave him a bath and then let him sleep in just a onsie with no pants on that night so that his rash wouldn't get worse from the rubbing of his jammie bottoms. The next morning Stephen and I looked at his rash and it had really bad scabbing on it. It must have bled a little that night...so sad. Where his rash is now, it looks like he fell down and scraped it pretty bad on the asphalt. Thankfully it doesn't bother him when he has his pants on now to keep him warm.
Overall we are so glad to know for sure what he is allergic to and what to do about it. The next step will be to educate our families and those who will be with him of his allergies. This is definitely going to be an on going trial for the rest of his life when it comes to school, friends and teaching him the responsibilities of his allergies. I know that he will be a boy and give into temptation when his friends have reeces peanut butter cups or butterfingers or peanut butter cookies, or anything with nuts in it...but as long as he knows his responsibilities and we keep him within guidelines, I think we'll be okay.

Valentines Day!

On Valentines day Stephen had to work, so my little man was my valentine for the day. We went over to Lori's house for some yummy breakfast since Aaron had to work, and Audrey and Nate dogg came too because David was out at a YM campout. We hung out, sewed, talked, relaxed and enjoyed each others company while all of our hubby's were away. Thankfully we all had out little boys to be our valentine. They all had fun playing too.
Friday morning Caisen woke up with croup, a viral infection that leads to swelling in the airways and can cause difficulty breathing. Thankfully it wasn't contagious. So that morning I took him to the pediatrician and they gave him 4 tablets of steriods to take to keep the swelling down. There really isn't a treatment for croup so he just has to overcome it over time. And since there really isn't any "cure" I normally wouldn't take him to the pediatrician to just have them give him drugs that don't get rid of the sickness but when Stephen was a little boy he had croup really bad. Infants and children usually outgrow this by the time their 4 years old, but Stephen didn't that young. He had croup so bad that his mom had to take him to the ER and had to sit in a room and carry him all night in case his croup got out of hand. If it did, they would have had to perform an emergency tracheotomy on him. So, that is why I was very cautious of Caisen having croup.
Anyway, so that afternoon we came home, rested, and then Stephen was home at 6pm:) That night we had the Jenkins and Rygmyrs over for some homemade pizzas that were delicious. We each got to roll out our own dough, add our own toppings and then cook them on a pizza stone. We had chicken, sausages, sauteed mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, mozz cheese, olives and other great toppings. It was a really good Valentines evening spent with friends! After everyone left, we had extra dough that we didn't want to throw away so we had Caisen make a big pizza for Sunday nights dinner. Here are cute pictures and video of him doing it. He was not a fan of spreading out the pizza sauce with his hands but he had a blast throwing chesse on the pizza.

Just for daddy!

Here is your happy boy who just woke up from his nap and is eating lunch. Thank you for working. We are so grateful you have a job to keep us safe and happy at home. We love you oh so very much!

Allergies!

After Caisen turned 1 in November I decided that I would try and give him some peanut butter in a PB and J sandwich. Well, he ate about half his sandwich and he started breaking out in hives around his mouth. I took the sandwich away immediately and wiped his face and hands down, which by the way there was no residue of peanut butter on his hands or face but I just wiped him down as precaution. Oh, and I used organic peanut butter. So anyway the hives did not go away for 6 hours. I didn't think much because it's not like he was struggling to breath or any of that. He was happy the whole time. So I just decided to wait a couple months to give him more peanut butter. Well, in January I gave him some dried fruit from a fruit and nut trail mix, and again, he broke out in hives around his mouth. This time, I didn't even give him peanuts though, he just broke out because the peanuts were mixed in with the fruit. So I stopped giving him that. Well, I had him allergy tested last month, and they just did blood work. Which by the way is so hard to see your baby pinned down screaming so that they can draw blood. As soon as it was all done they gave him a popcicle and it was like nothing had happened...he was happier than before. But anyway the blood test is to test for a ton of allergies, but it does not specify how severe reactions can be. And that's what an allergy specialist is for. They do a scrape test and wait to see reactions and then diagnose what needs to be done to take care of the issue. So this past weekend we went to a family function and a little boy innocently gave Caisen a Nutter Butter cookie. Caisen ate half of it before someone saw it and felt that they should take it away and that he probably shouldn't be eating it. Well immediately someone told us so we got Caisen and half his face had already broken out in hives, and one of his eyes was swollen pretty bad. He was raspy for a while and his throat seemed irritated so we wiped him off and left quickly. We left a message for the dr. and waited for him to call back while we were in the car. We were about 40 mins away from home and were going to take him to the urgent care near our house. Well his pediatrician called us back, gave us instructions and then sent us home. By the time we got home his hives had gone down, he was talking, and only his eye was still swollen. We gave him Benadryl and bathed him and put him to bed. In the morning his eye was back to normal. Anyway, so yesterday I got the results back from his blood work and come to find out, not only is he allergic to peanuts, he's allergic to eggs! I've given him eggs before and have never noticed a reaction, but then again, I buy the $4 a carton, organic, brown, no steriods, grain fed, all natural eggs...so I'm not sure whats up with that. Anyway, we have an allergy appointment next week, and in the meantime, if anyone has any allery advice, PLEASE SHARE!
Stephen and I are just so grateful that Caisen is happy, healthy and is right on track with his development. These allergies are just a blessing in disguise. And I mean really, most fast food places cook in peanut oils, so thats not a bad thing that Caisen won't be eating that junk.

GSP vs. BJ PENN

So a couple weeks ago we went to my brothers house to watch the UFC George St. Pierre vs. BJ PENN fight for the title. As you all know, Penn is from Hawaii so of course we were going for him the whole time. Well he ended up getting licked really bad by GSP and all of Hawaii was bummed. Anyway, so rumor has it that GSP had vaseline on his back, and I guess that's not allowed. That's probably why Penn couldn't use his jujitsu skills on him...lame. The refs apparently told GSP and his corner to clean that crap off his back several times, which I guess they didn't. And on top of all of that, Penn was just getting over the flu. Of course his pride didn't want to cancel the fight so he tried...and again, got licked. Anyway, the talk of Hawaii is that there may possibly be a rematch. And if so, I am stoked! I was so excited for him to win:(
If any of you know anything about Hawaii, we have no professional sports teams so our biggest sport is UH Football. All the locals buy season tickets, tailgate, and all the bars and restaurants broadcast the game. The whole island basically shuts down when UH is playing because that's the only action we get and in Hawaii, every one is family. So everyone is out to support each other. Well, when any local makes it big in any sport and comes up to the mainland...they're basically a celebrity in Hawaii. And they all have the whole state behind them as fans. So us hawaiians up here are definitely fans of BJ Penn, even though we don't even know the guy. I'm just hopeing that there can be a fair rematch! (If all those rumors are true!) And for you GSP fans, if it was a fair match, I agree that he totally deserved the win! He killed it out there.